Montreal

My husband and I spent the long weekend in Montreal, making the trip 1) our first vacation, by ourselves, not involving family, since we got married--which really makes it our honeymoon, and 2) his first trip out of the country. Yes, he lived in San Diego, not 30 miles from Mexico, for all those years and never made it across the border.

We had a great time. It was bitter cold (I don't think the temperatures ever made it into the double digits), but we expected that. And there was less snow on the ground there than there still is in my backyard. The highlight of the trip was, of course, our two dinners out. We did the touristy stuff, saw the museums, walked around the old part of the city, but it was too cold for more than the bare minimum of aimless wandering, and the meals really were awesome.

Things to Know About Montreal:

1. You don't need to know French. It helps, of course, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover my husband remembered enough high school French to be able to tell the waiter that I was probably going to order him the rabbit. Also all the signs are in French. But everyone also speaks English (though usually they'll start off in French, and keep going unless you ask them to switch), and a stop sign is a stop sign, even if it says "Arret" instead of "Stop."

2. The US dollar and the Canadian dollar are about the same. There may be two cents' difference.

3. It's really cold in winter. But they keep the streets crystal clear.

4. We stayed at the cutest B&B, Absolument Montreal. Our room came with a kitchenette (including mini-fridge stocked with free sodas and water), a vestibule, and a hot tub. (Which was outdoors, so I didn't use it. I wasn't about to brave zero-degree night temperatures, even for a hot tub.) Best of all, the room came with a full three-course breakfast, served to us in our room, personally, by the owner. Tea and coffee and fresh orange juice, with a cheese/charcuterie plate to start, followed by something hot--eggs benedict with smoked salmon on day 1, a croque monsieur on a croissant on day 2--followed by fresh fruit and yogurt and pastries. In our room. At whatever time we wanted. So that was pretty awesome.

5. The dining really is top notch.

Warning: during our two dinners, we ate things that may offend squeamish readers. If you're one of those, stop here.

Dinner 1: DNA

One of the Top 5 meals of my life. Definitely #1 with my husband.

This is exactly the kind of restaurant that I love. Hip, great vibe, relaxed, great wine list, amazing food. And none of those things suffers at the hands of any others. DNA has one of the best wine lists in Montreal, specializing in Canadian wine. For some reasons, Quebec hasn't yet caught on that Canada (particularly British Columbia) is making some world-class wines. Their wine lists and wine stores stock a great selection of French wines, but not much else. DNA is trying to change that, and I noticed that their wine list included one of the wines that I fell in love with in Vancouver during my road trip (see blog post about that wine here). Naturally I had to go there, and drink it.

Awesomeness, in order:
1. Decor. Red and orange with really interesting lighting. Sounds tacky, but they did it just right. And they had these great orange bowl sinks in the bathrooms.
2. Bottles of Canadian wine were half off before 7 pm. We got there long before our reservation at 8:30, to hang at the bar, and so I was able to get the bottle of wine I really wanted at a reasonable price--only a few dollars above retail. (See aforementioned blog post.)
3. They seated us early, because we were there.
4. The menu. We ordered:

Pig's ear. (really a pate)

Horse heart tartare.

Housemade charcuterie.

Cornmeal-encrusted rabbit, baked in a cast-iron pan.

Piglet.

Let's take a pause here to appreciate, and celebrate, the fact that we ate horse heart tartare. That is exactly what it sounds like: raw horse heart, chopped fine and served with herbs and things. You can't eat horse in the US for a variety of reasons (even though it's perfectly legal), primarily because for most people, the idea of eating horse is repugnant. Similar to eating dog, or cat. But horse is eaten widely in most other parts of the world--it's usually considered a delicacy, and in fact, much of the world's horsemeat comes from the US. Slaughtered here, and exported. It's much lighter and leaner than beef, softer, tastes sweeter, is a beautiful brilliant red color, and it's free of tuberculosis and tapeworms, thus safer than beef to eat raw.

And it was delicious.

(If you're offended by that, I'm sorry. Take comfort in the fact I won't be eating more horse any time soon.)

That, and the cornmeal-crusted rabbit, were the culinary highlights. The rabbit meat was very light and delicate, almost white--it was definitely farmed rabbit. I've eated wild rabbit before and it was far stringier and gamier. My piglet (really part of a piglet leg, slow-braised and served with parsnips and turnips) was moist and yummy, but paled in comparison.

Our second bottle of wine was nearly as enjoyable as the first: Road 13 Pinot Noir.

At the end of the meal, there were surprise fireworks.

Day 2: Au Pied du Cochon

When I planned the trip, I thought Au Pied du Cochon would be the best meal, and DNA merely a warm-up. In reality, it was almost opposite.

I say "almost" because our entree catapulted an otherwise unmemorable meal into the storytelling stratosphere.

Here is a picture of our entree:

That is an entire pig's head, roasted, with a lobster shoved through the top.

The entire pig's head. Ears, tongue, nose and all. To eat it, you have to cut into its face.

Here's another view:

Yes, we ate pig face.

It was served on a big wooden cutting board, with a steak knife impaled through the top of its head, anchoring it to the board. Half a lobster was then impaled on a wooden skewer, and also shoved through the top of its head. The lobster claw was arranged coming out of its mouth, along with an artfully arranged smear of mashed potatoes. The effect was as if a mutant lobster had attacked the pig through its brain and out its mouth, while the pig bled and vomited mashed potatoes.

Served with a bowl of pig head and lobster juice for dipping, of course.

We couldn't eat it for at least five minutes after it was presented. At least half the restaurant stopped eating and came over to us to take pictures.

Then it took us another five minutes to figure out how to eat it. (Remove the lobster parts; start with the cheeks. Leave the knife in.)

I have to admit I didn't eat much of it--I was too fascinated with the presentation. I played with it more than anything. It was delicious, and fatty, and tender, and crunchy-burnt on the outside, but I was preoccupied with the various technical challenges eating such a thing presented. (What happened to the brain? Did they take out the eyeballs, or did they bake away? Ooh, look, the jawbone comes right out! And there are teeth still attached to it! Is that the tongue? Gosh, the ears have a lot of cartilage. Do I eat that part? I wonder how you eat the nose? Should the nose be eaten? And so on.)

I got the world's largest doggie bag to take the copious leftovers home with me--I asked for everything, including the bones and lobster shells (so I could make stock, but also so I could completely deconstruct the dish at home).

Here's the carnage of leftovers:

Other things to know about Au Pied du Cochon:

It's crowded, small, and loud. Definitely not the laid-back, hip, fine dining atmosphere of DNA. We also had the duck charcuterie and a buckwheat-pancake-maple-syrup thing with a big hunk of foie gras on top. I have to say neither one of those dishes impressed me. Also the waiter assured me that the pig head for two was not an abnormal amount of food. That was SUCH a lie.

I would go back, but only if I got an earlier reservation, at an actual table instead of at the bar, and I would order more foie gras-laden dishes, and not listen to the waiter when I asked for recommendations.

Anthony Bourdain ate here.

The Other Place Worth Mentioning:

Dieu Du Ciel, which makes its own craft beers. All of the ones we tried were delicious.

And Marche Jean-Talon, the city's big farmer's market.

The Moral of the Story:

We'll be back. It was only a five-and-a-half-hour drive, meaning much of Eastern Canada is well within weekend road trip distance (everything from Toronto to Newfoundland). The dining in Montreal is world-class, and it's a very European kind of city. And I wasn't made to feel like a retard for not being able to speak French.

I also found one of my most favorite wines in the whole world, Laughing Stock, which is not exported to the US and can only be bought in Canada, so I'll have to go back to get more of it.

When presented with the opportunity to eat weird things, I will. Bless my husband for completely going along with that and eating everything that I did. (He liked all of it as much as I did.) I married a good one.

I really love good wine. And eating. I really love eating.

The end.

Bacon chocolate

Order it here.

Lauren, tell all your friends. ;-)

A Razor, A Shiny Knife + Room Forty = Awesome

I've blogged about my adventures with A Razor, A Shiny Knife before (here, here and here). They're my most favorite of all the underground restaurants/supper clubs I've been to. If I were independently wealthy, I would totally just give big awesome underground dinners for the rest of my life.

But I'm not independently wealthy, and so I volunteered to help out at their latest shindig in LA. Here are the takeaways from Saturday's event, in no particular order:

1. My ass is TIRED.

2. I realized at the end of the night that essentially I'd just waitressed for 12 hours, in inappropriate shoes, for free. I didn't get to taste any of the dishes or the wines. There wasn't even a lot of cooking to watch, as much of it was done offsite ahead of time and trucked in.

3. Which means that next time these guys are in town, I will just cough up the $160 a person. That way I can actually eat the food, which is the whole point. Plus I'll be able to sit down.

4. Nevertheless, it was great fun.

5. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming article about it in the LA Times. (Possibly with a mention of me, with my new last name.)

Here's the menu:

They paired up with LA-based Room Forty to present a seven-course, eight-hour extravaganza in the lobby of the Variety building on Wilshire Boulevard, across from LACMA. Yes, it was in the lobby. That was sort of neat, actually. Here are some pictures:

I set that table.

Yep, that one. 52 place settings.

Michael Cirino giving a cooking demonstration.

Short ribs cooking sous vide--at rare, for 48 hours.

Fun with liquid nitrogen.

Course 1: Caviar, Duck Fat, Creme Fraiche, Potato. The potato was fried in the duck fat. That's a chive and black salt on top.

Course 2: Sea Bass, Stone Fruit, Verjus, Chervil. Wild striped sea bass carpaccio with peaches cooked sous vide, with a strawberry coulis and fresh chervil on top.

Course 3: Duck Egg, Duck Leg, Goose Liver, Summer Truffle. The round of duck confit was topped with a duck egg yolk cooked sous vide. The mache was topped with a foie gras vinaigrette, and as we served, we shaved frozen foie gras and black summer truffle on top.

Here we are prepping the duck course.

Can I just tell you about the foie gras viniagrette? This was one of the things I managed to taste. I wanted to bathe in it. I wanted to get down on all fours and lick the bowl. That's how good it was.

Also? Heaven smells like truffles.

Mmmmm...truffles.

Course 4: Short Rib, Red Wine, Bone Marrow, Carrots. Here's the sous vide short rib, crisped in duck fat, with a bone marrow sauce and peas and carrots.

Course 5: Triple Cream, Nuts and Berries. A French triple cream (brie) turned into a cheese "snow" and served with a pecan brittle and fresh berries.

Course 6: Chocolate, Strawberries, Methocel, Ultratex. Modern gastronomy magic. I can't even begin to explain this one. My brain had turned to mush long before this course.

There was another course, an amuse bouche in there somewhere, involving potatoes and liquid-nitrogen-shattered-blackberry "caviar," but again, my brain was much and I didn't get a picture of that one.

Here's a final shot of the crowd, with Michael pontificating:

Note the addition of a second, smaller table off to the right.

There were wines, and a cocktail, and a ton of photographers. Everyone had a great time (I think), and Michael was in true showman mode.

These guys are based in Brooklyn, but they travel pretty regularly. I highly recommend going to one of their dinners if at all possible. The cost is worth it. (And they're doing good to break even on the food and beverage costs, so it's not like they're making a profit.)

Now if I could just do something about my still-aching feet...

I redesigned my food blog!

Check it out!
http://www.brokefoodie.com/

And, you know, tell all your friends.

Addison

Saturday night we utilized one of our best wedding presents--a gift certificate to Addison, San Diego's only five-star restaurant. Some preliminary research revealed our largesse would not stretch far enough to cover dinner for two with wine pairings, so instead of a half-assed dinner, we decided to spend our money instead on some really nice wine. Just wine, no dinner. (Okay, we did get a cheese plate.) We ended up getting two bottles of different styles, though the first was by far and away the best one.

This was the first wine:

And this was the second one:

The first was a Rhone Valley Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Really lovely, fruit forward but also earthy, with some nice hints of truffle and blue cheese. Lush, good mouth feel. I'll be drinking a lot more Rhone Valley wines in the near future.

The second was Californian, so we had an Old World wine and then a New World one. It was just what you'd expect from a big Californian cab--big, jammy, tannic, lots of alcohol. Good, but anything would have been a disappointment after that first wine.

The experience was wonderful--getting dressed up, sitting at the elegant bar drinking our expensive wine, acting like sophisticated-type adult people, and not like old married people who can't afford to eat out ever and will be going home to change into old bathrobes and reheat some leftover chili for dinner. Alas that our budget can't stretch to cover evenings like that more often!

New Me vs. Old Me

So yesterday at work, being bored, I reverted to my old method of killing time at work—planning imaginary trips. I think it’s great fun, but it has one painful side effect. It stokes the wanderlust. Periodically it stokes it high enough that I actually take one of the trips I’ve just planned. (Sometimes last-minute, sometimes not.)

Yesterday I was thinking about that week we’ll have in our apartment after we return from the wedding. Technically it’s our honeymoon, which will be spent running errands, going to the beach, and having a lot of sex. Of course, I’d much rather do those things in a more exotic locale, but the money just ain’t there right now. So I started thinking of day trips we could take--Tijuana, the Channel Islands, maybe Death Valley. That led into “well, if we’re going to drive to Death Valley, we might as well spend a couple of days and see some other stuff at the same time,” which led to “oooooh! We could go back to the Grand Tetons and spend a long weekend there!” which led to “why not take another mini-road trip through Utah, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming?”

I planned the whole thing out, down to researching hotel rooms, before common sense reminded me that “all that money you’ll spend going to Wyoming would pay off a debt or two.” Damn. But, correct. So then my brain piped back up with “how about just a nice dinner out? That could be the ‘honeymoon.’”

I got a reservation at the Inn at Little Washington.

For those of you that don’t know, the Inn at Little Washington is consistently rated one of the top three or four restaurants in the United States. It’s in a tiny dinky town in Virginia, an hour’s drive outside DC and around two hours’ drive from where the wedding festivities will be. It’s very hard to get a reservation there, I’ve always wanted to go, and a honeymoon sounds like a pretty good reason to go to me. So, problem solved. Right?

Until I did the math.

Now, on an empirical level, I have no problem spending $700 on dinner for two. (Tasting menu + wine pairings = $288 per person, plus tax and tip.) I’ve spent $500 on dinner for myself, and it was worth every penny. This, I guess, is “Old Me.” The Me who would happily drop that kind of money on a fancy-pants dinner. ESPECIALLY with a good reason like a honeymoon. Who is now warring with “New Me,” who says “$700 would buy the two of us a week in New Orleans. Or a Big Green Egg. Or, you know, some dental work and groceries and new tires for the truck and maybe some new socks.”

SIGH. I know I shouldn’t go, but I really really want to! But, you know, fiscal responsibility and adulthood and all that.

So my compromise will be to cancel the reservation (!!!), happily spend the week at the beach/running errands, and download the menu from the restaurant. Then try to make all those yummy things for myself. Maybe when we get some stuff paid down, we can go visit my sister and the new baby, spend that money living it up in New Orleans for a few days, and I can make a fancy-pants multi-course dinner with wine pairings for everybody. And we can eat it in our pajamas.

Not the same at all. But it'll have to do.

The underground foodie scene in Pamplin, VA

Well, I'm just gobsmacked. The teeny-tiny town I grew up in (Pamplin, VA: population 200) has finally developed a few links to the outside world. Yesterday, while reading Serious Eats (one of my favorite foodie blogs) I discovered an old article about Frog Bottom Farm, an organic CSA farm in Pamplin. My reaction ran the gamut between "WTF? In PAMPLIN?!" and "That's so (expletive deleted) cool," and "Why didn't anyone tell ME about this?" I checked out Frog Bottom's website and discovered that although I don't know the owners (they moved down from Northern Virginia), they're the sort of people I want to know. Small, locally-owned, organic CSA farms are exactly what I was searching for all those years I lived in New York, and now here's one in my (former) backyard. What are the odds?

So I did some more Googling and discovered a wealth of local wineries, small organic free-range pig/poultry/lamb/goat farms (here's one), local apiaries, microbreweries, and even more CSA farms. There's a WINERY. In PAMPLIN. (Until about a year ago, Appomattox County was completely dry.) There's even an off-the-grid modern Danish kit house in Pamplin now, complete with solar panels and recycled insulation. The community of food outliers I'd always sought in New York, hanging out in the wilds of Central Virginia.

I was appalled that no one had bothered to tell me of these new developments, so I called my parents and asked them why they hadn't told me. "Well, you don't live here anymore," my mom helpfully pointed out. Apparently these small farms are struggling--the locals are notoriously wary of outsiders, and an organic CSA farm will win no favor with them, the vast majority of whom already maintain their own extensive vegetable gardens. In New York, when your options are 1) buy organic from the farmer's market or 2) go to the corner deli and pay $3 for a head of lettuce that's doused in pesticides, shrinkwrapped in plastic, and flown in from Chile, it's no wonder that people are increasingly turning to #1. But out in the country, where people already grow their own vegetables, there's no incentive to pay the premium for "organic" at either the grocery store or the farmer's market. I get that. I'm sure Frog Bottom's customers all come from the bigger cities in Virginia.

But it still warms my heart to see a burgeoning community of people who share my passions about food right in my own hometown. Now I want to locally source the food for the wedding, featuring the local organic veggies and pork and maybe even some local wines/microbrews. I realize I'll be the only person at the wedding that cares. But that's what the locavore movement is about, right? Supporting the farmers around you? I hope these ventures take root and become successful. I'm having pleasant daydreams of living in Appomattox Country again, surrounded by fresh-grown organic fruits and veggies, free-range chickens and pork, local wines and microbrews, sitting on the back porch after a good meal talking about all those things with fellow foodies. And trust me, never ever before this did I ever have a pleasant daydream about living in Appomattox County again. If they manage to conjure up a good cheese store, all hope may be lost for me.

Bacon chocolate for all!

My homemade bacon chocolate was such a success this weekend that I'm sharing it with the world, here. I know I'm biased, but I think a couple pounds of bacon chocolate would make a great Christmas gift for someone you know!

My kitchen adventures have been particularly inspired in the last week, primarily because I'm cleaning out the refrigerator in preparation for Christmas travels. I can't wait to spend the next two weeks traveling, taking pictures, cooking for loved ones, catching up on my reading and writing (both for book and blogs), and hanging out with my nearest and dearest. I picked up a new freelance gig this week that I'm very excited about, I've got a stack of books and projects to keep me busy, and the library has graciously provided me with a free copy of The Professional Chef to peruse over the holidays.

And speaking of books--my hero and muse Anthony Bourdain has a new one coming out, the sequel to Kitchen Confidential. D-Day is June 8, 2010.

Genius, pure genius

A bacon chocolate bar.

I will definitely be doing some experimenting in the kitchen this weekend.

Thinking about Thanksgiving

I realized the other day that this will be the first Thanksgiving in a few years that I've even been in the country, and many more years since I've actually celebrated Thanksgiving (thank you, bad breakups). So naturally, I'll have to do something this year. Ideally, I'd like to invite over a bunch of people who don't have family plans already and do a big traditional dinner, complete with football and turkey and pumpkin pie. We'll see if I can manage to pull that off--perhaps John and I will just be eating Thanksgiving leftovers for the month of December, because I'll probably cook the same amount of food regardless.

D'Artagnan is selling fresh, free-range, organic, heritage breed turkeys. They're exponentially more expensive than the supermarket sale turkey (Safeway frozen turkeys, 8-12 lbs: $5), but guess which one tastes better? Also, can you really trust an entire 12 lb turkey selling for $5? D'Artagnan may end up getting a lot of money from me this month: they're also selling wild boar, tasso, quail eggs, duck bacon...I'll stop before I drool all over the keyboard.

Here's a possible menu:
Turkey and gravy (duh)
Butternut squash soup with fried sage leaves
Shittake mushroom stuffing
Beet-mashed potatoes
Cranberry and apple terrine
Bacon and almond quinoa
Edamame salad with beets and greens
Creamed spinach with truffle oil
Roasted sweet potato and okra salad
Possibly bourbon corn pudding
Fresh pumpkin pie

With a couple of nice pinot noirs. Oooh, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. Now picture the above, and then compare it to this:
The 20 Worst Kids' Foods in America

It's all about the little things

One of the things I love most about not living in New York is being able to shop at Sam’s Club again. I know, I’m weird, but something in me rejoices in having large quantities of pantry basics and non-perishables around. Why buy a 5-lb bag of flour for $4 when you can get 25 lbs for $8 at Sam’s? It’s interesting seeing the regional differences—in Mississippi, I can get red beans and andouille sausage in bulk; in New York, I can get five different kinds of pasta and egg creams; in Virginia, I could always count on pine nuts and country ham. Here, there’s a bare minimum of pasta and no beans at all, but I can get tripe and beef cheeks in bulk. I’m attributing that to the fact that I’m about 15 miles from Mexico. But it does mean a bit of a readjustment in my shopping list (okay, I can’t get penne or pine nuts or red beans in bulk anymore—but I CAN get short ribs). I went to Sam’s this weekend and loaded up on some yummy stuff—short ribs, sausages, avocados, tomatoes, nectarines, crab (which is expensive on the West Coast, even at Sam’s, and I can no longer get fresh never-previously-frozen shrimp), dried fruit, etc., etc. It’s been a couple of days of good eating, much to John’s lunchtime delight. He seems new to this whole eating-leftovers-for-lunch phenomenon. Bachelors are funny creatures.

Anyway, so the other night we had crab cakes with mango salsa on sautéed rainbow chard; last night we had lamb chops with a corn-cilantro-tomato quinoa; and O Joy of Joys, I found a foie gras connection. The nearby Bristol Farms, a gourmet supermarket which has the advantage of being within walking distance, has some very good smoked bacon. Normally I get bacon at Sam’s (bulk bacon!) but the selection on Saturday was more bacon fat than bacon, so I wandered down to Bristol Farms after work yesterday to replenish. I gabbed with the meat counter guy for a while about the possibility of ordering fresh shrimp (no) and pork belly (yes), and then noticed they sold foie gras.

Now, I could only buy foie gras in whole packages in New York. One whole liver tends to be about a pound and a half, and at $80 a pound, that was too rich for my blood. Every once in a while I could find canned foie gras somewhere in small tins, but you know my feelings about anything canned. But the meat guy agreed to give me an eighth of a pound of fresh foie gras last night, in beautiful thin slices, which meant I had a mini-gorging session when I got home. It was all I could do to save some for John. This is a very exciting, but potentially very expensive, development for me.

Tonight I think I’m going to use up the last of loaf of French bread to make French bread pizzas, and then make a mango-avocado salad to go on the side. A mango-avocado salad in New York would be the height of fruity decadence; but they’re so cheap here, it’s almost like eating beans. Tomorrow I foresee a butternut squash and roasted shallot risotto with a dandelion greens salad on the side.

"It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses."

I have now officially seen more corn than I thought existed in the whole world. If we're actually eating all that corn, in the form of high-fructose corn syrup and other corn byproducts, it's no wonder we're all so fat. Isn't the Midwest supposed to be the nation's breadbasket? Where's all the grain?

The Midwest is far more boring than the West. While the West was much emptier, it was almost desolate in its emptiness, which made it sort of interesting. The Midwest is just corn, corn and interstate, as far as the eye can see--and it's just populated enough to elevate it into the realm of boring. Chuck Klosterman, I love you, but you come from a really boring state.

There are a couple of exceptions--Minnesota was much prettier than either of the Dakotas or Wisconsin (I think because there were more hills). Wisconsin, at least the part I saw from the interstate, rivals central Illinois in its ability to induce sleep while driving. I'm sure many parts of Wisconsin and central Illinois are lovely; but I didn't see those parts. Chicago, however, was and remains a bright shining beacon of hope in the midst of all that boredom. Chicago has now joined LA in my list of Favorite Places from this road trip. Both cities will definitely warrant a much longer and more involved return visit.

I splurged and got a room at an actual hotel, overlooking the lake. Then, because I couldn't get a reservation at Alinea, I had dinner at Blackbird. That was easily the best meal I've had since Vancouver, and it's no wonder--it's probably the first city in which I could have had that meal since Vancouver. I like big cities for many reasons--nightlife, culture, good food--and Chicago fulfills all those requirements in spades. I wouldn't want to be there in the winter, but in the summer it's gorgeous.

At Blackbird, I had good wine, some Chartreuese, veal sweetbreads with truffles, soft-shell crab, and an endive salad in a crusty potato basket thing with a poached egg on top. And of course the cheese plate. The soft-shell crab was more fry than crab, but it came over a mixture of edamame and jalapeno, which made up for it. I was quite happily stuffed. The next morning, I went out to explore the city and got in my cultural fix. I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Art Institute, which are now my favorite art museums outside NYC. MCA featured an exhibit by Olafur Eliasson, which included the most strangely beautiful piece I think I've ever seen. It was a black box room, with a spongey floor, completely dark except for one dim spotlight centered on a fine mist of water. Doesn't sound like much, but the light made such beautiful unexpected patterns in the water, and the sound of the water falling in a dark room was a balm on my travel-weary soul. I stayed there for several minutes, and thanked the universe for art, art museums, and cities big enough to support such art museums.

Lunch involved a 90-minute wait at Hot Doug's, #12 on Anthony Bourdain's list of "13 Places You Have to Eat Before You Die." I had a large order of duck-fat fries (duck fat now joins my list of Things That Make Everything Better, along with bourbon and bacon), and three hot dogs: Spicy Smoked Alligator Sausage with Cajun Remoulade and St. Pete's Blue Cheese, Jamaican Jerk Pork Sausage with Spicy Mango-Passion Fruit Mayonnaise and Roasted Plantains, and Foie Gras and Sauternes Duck Sausage with Truffle Aioli, Foie Gras Mousse and Sel Gris. Now those are hot dogs. Well worth the 90-minute wait, even if I did want to start gnawing on my own arm out of hunger by the time I got them.

I stayed with John's parents in Columbia, MO for the night: another drive across corn and interstate, notable only for the fact that it was not Chicago traffic. Chicago, I love you, but you have some really suck-ass traffic. Please, work on that before I return.

New Orleans, LA

Despite my deep and abiding love for New Orleans, I tried to stay out of the city as much as possible--I am on a budget, after all. And a girl who loves food and wine and Abita beer cannot remain on a budget in NOLA. Speaking of which, I went on the Abita brewery tour on Wednesday. The tour was boring, but the beer was great. The best part about going to Abita Springs, LA, is that all the businesses start with Abita. Heh. I stopped into the nearby Abita Brew Pub for lunch, and afterwards I loaded up the car with several different kinds. It's hard finding Abita beer outside Louisiana--they seriously need a better distributor.

I also got to drive all the way across Lake Pontchartrain. It's about a twenty-minute drive, with nothing but water as far as the eye can see. It's a little like driving between the Florida Keys. It's also a little creepy, driving so long over open water.

That night Betsy and I discovered Biker Night at one of the local marina bars. I haven't had such good people-watching in quite a while, even in New York. As you might expect, there were dozens of tricked-out Harleys, thousands of visible tattoos, and several examples of creative facial hair. Oh, plus multiple people wearing assless chaps. And drinks were 2-for-1. Good times. Several large, burly men chatted us up, and then gave us a ride on their bikes back to the car (which was all of 25 feet away). But the bikes were lovely, and made me want to learn how to drive one.

Yesterday I explored Cajun country; I drove to Lafayette, LA, then down to Houma on old 182. The interstate to Lafayette stretches for 30 miles across the Atchafalaya Swamp; more evidence of Louisiana's fascination with building bridges across vast, open stretches of water. ("Great...tracts of land!") I had crawfish enchiladas at Prejean's. Highlights of the drive down 182 included several deserted foundries, approximately nine metric tons of Spanish moss, and the "Dacquiri Drivethrough" in Jeanerette. (No, I didn't.) I had considered a swamp tour, or shrimp boat excursion, or Swim with the Alligators, or some such purportedly "Cajun" activity, but I think that will have to wait until I'm not on a budget.

Then last night came the Abita tasting dinner at Ralph's on the Park, a four-course dinner with Abita pairings. The menu:

Appetizer: terrine of wild boar with hazelnuts and black currants, served with summer peach and citrus chutney and pea shoots
Abita: Satsuma

First course: saffron-braised lamb shank with preserved lemon and golden raisins over creamy polenta
Abita: IPA

Second course: cold pecan-smoked veal flank steak served with morel mushroom saute and English peas in a red wine marrow sauce, with roasted marrow bone
Abita: Amber

Dessert: Chambord Bavarian cream bombe with root beer hard candy brittle
Abita: Purple Haze

All very lovely. Turbodog is still my favorite.

Shrimp Creole

Tuesday night I made a super-fresh shrimp creole for Betsy. I found some huge, fresh, head-on shrimp and decided to take advantage of them. I peeled all the shrimp and put the heads and shells in a pan of water to make shrimp stock. Whole shrimp are surprisingly easy to peel; the head snaps right off, the legs come off with the tail, and then all you have to do is run your thumb up under what's left of the shell and pop it off.

I chopped up all of Betsy's ripe tomatoes--about 27, seriously--and started by sweating out chopped onion, garlic, celery, green pepper, and a little jalapeno in butter. I added a couple smoked alligator and pork sausages, then reduced that in a little white wine. I added the tomatoes, tomato paste, and shrimp stock, along with a healthy dose of salt (to help the tomatoes break down) and seasonings--bay leaves, paprika, chili powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, oregano, basil, parsley, and thyme. At the last minute I threw in the shrimp and a handful of chopped okra.

Serve hot, over rice, with Abita beer. Sit in the backyard and watch the fireflies.

DLS at Allen and Delancey

Time Out New York was sponsoring a new DLS event last Monday at Allen and Delancey, featuring mixologist Alex Day (bartender at Death & Co). The menu consisted of six gin drinks, with food pairings, at one of the Lower East Side's finest restaurants. Now, I'm not a huge fan of gin. But Alex, true to form, made six gin drinks that tasted nothing like any gin drink I've ever had. Plus, the food was great, and it was actually possible to pair food with gin. The menu was:

Drink 1:
John Collins (Bols Genever, lemon, seltzer)
Spanish mackerel crudo, spiced yogurt, pickled cucumber

Drink 2:
William and Mary#1 (Plymouth gin, lime, yellow Chartreuse, maraschino, rose and lavender bitters)
Seared diver scallop, lemon confit, cauliflower puree

Drink 3:
William and Mary #2 (Martin Miller's gin, vermouth bianco, green Chartreuse, cinnamon bark tincture)
Testa, house-made mustard, fried pig's ear, frisee

Drink 4:
Hanky Panky (Beefeater gin, carpano antica, Fernet Branca, twist of orange)
Honey-glazed duck, wild rice, preserved cherries, hazelnuts

Drink 5:
Billy Penn Club (Old Tom gin, Dolin Dry Vermouth de Chambery, lemon, preserves, egg white)
Epoisses, apple butter, honey-roasted walnuts

Drink 6 and dessert:
Rhubarb-Gin Fizz Float
Anchor junipero, rhubarb sorbet, yogurt panna cotta, seltzer

We got a tutorial in the different kinds of gin (junipero tastes nothing like Beefeater, btw) and in Chartreuse. The Billy Penn Club was my favorite; it tasted like an alcoholic meringue, and paired surprisingly beautifully with the epoisses, my favorite stinky cheese. The rhubarb-gin fizz float was pretty exciting, as well. I'll definitely be going to more DLS events--when I return.

Finalized menu for May 16

Join us for our next feast on Saturday, May 16 at 7 pm!

Menu:

Amuse bouche

First course:
Chicken liver pate
Frisee with blackberry vinaigrette
Cornichons
Francois Chidaine Touraine 2007, Chenin Blanc

Second course:
Corn fritter
Bacon salsa
Muga Rioja Rose 2008

Third course:
Bitter greens ravioli
Sauteed collard greens
San Pietro Lagrein, Alto Adige, 2006

Fourth course:
Barbecued quail
Cheese grits
Green onions
Fleur Petite Syrah 2007

Fifth course:
Cheesecake
Blackberry syrup
Piasa Sanmaurizio Moscato D'Asti 2008

Coffee, tea, candied grapefruit peel

Lots of people have asked what exactly an underground supper club is. The Times did an article on this phenomenon last year; also check out www.theghet.com. Here's my standard spiel: underground supper clubs/restaurants are the latest foodie trend, hosted by talented amateur chefs and mixologists. Similar to paying to attend a dinner party, the events usually take place in someone's home and are advertised exclusively through word of mouth. The prearranged price (sometimes paid by cash, sometimes through Paypal) buys you several courses of restaurant-quality gourmet food with wine and cocktail pairings, but in a much more intimate and convivial setting.

Sweet Virginia, to quote the Rolling Stones

I had a nice long weekend at home, visiting the folks and old friends. I spent most of Friday eating my mom's biscuits and gravy, then went out to a wine bar in Roanoke I'd been meaning to try and had a fried oyster po'boy (which goes surprisingly well with Caymus Conundrum). Saturday I had dinner at the Inn at Riverbend in Pearisburg; I helped make truffle cream crostini, and we had a salad with warm bacon vinaigrette, crab cakes with a green chile chutney, beef tenderloin with a morel-red wine sauce, and dark chocolate mousse for dessert, along with two bottles of Stag's Leap cab and one of Acacia Pinot Noir 2006. It's always great to have dinner with old friends, but especially when the setting is that beautiful and someone else does the cooking.

Bacon sushi

Last night I had a dream about bacon sushi. Bear with me here--it was cooked bacon, wrapped inside some sort of firm, strong fish like tuna or mackerel, served with that bourbon-aged soy sauce I have. Doesn't that sound amazing?

I also broke down and finally bought a decent knife. The ones I have are servicable, barely, but wholly inadequate for cutting raw meat. I discovered this yesterday as I was hacking at several pounds of pork belly with kitchen shears, because none of my knives were up to the task. Boo. So I bought the Shun 8" chef's knife, the one with the curved handle, and I'm really nerdily happy about it. Of course it will be strictly off-limits to anyone but me.

Pig Butchering

Last night I went to a pig butchering class, sponsored by Brooklyn Kitchen (you can see pictures there). I know what you're all picturing--me up to my elbows inside a hog. But no, it was not gory at all. The pig was already slaughtered, so the guts/brains/blood were long gone. In fact, we only saw half of it. The butcher on hand took us through the various cuts of pork, explaining what could be done with each, and then at the end everyone in the class divied up all the pork. It was pretty interesting--even though we never touched a knife or the pig, it's always good to know where meat comes from. Bacon does in fact come from the belly of a pig, not from a plastic package in the supermarket.

I was surprised that so many people volunteered for the lesser-known cuts. I expected the chops and ribs to go first thing, but actually, the head, hocks and jowls went first. I ended up with a nice piece of belly, a couple of big thick country-style ribs with a roast attached, a two-inch chop, and all the lard I could carry. This morning I'm cooking it all down, making rillons (little baked squares of pork belly), barbecued ribs, stock from the bones, and I'm rendering all the lard down. Crisco, eat your heart out.

The rillons are amazing. I'm thinking I may have to rejigger the menu for the first supper club event. And last night, I was able to introduce myself with, "I run an underground supper club in Brooklyn," to many murmurs of approval. This morning, I had my first stranger join the mailing list. Exciting stuff!

Candy and Cocktails, courtesy of A Razor, A Shiny Knife

Saturday was another A Razor, A Shiny Knife event, this one held at Botanica in Red Hook. This was my first real exposure to Red Hook proper, and I have to admit, if I didn't have to commute into Manhattan for work every day, I would totally live there. It's a great neighborhood, with a lot of really undervalued real estate and some lovely waterfront lofts. Unfortunately there's no subway access at all, which is why it's so cheap.

Botanica is a great little place, specializing in artisanal cocktails, and the open-air front wall was a perfect setting for Saturday's sunny 80-degree temps. Michael and fellow Razor guys were in the back all day, preparing dinner in addition to bar nibbles; my friend Tameka and I arrived early to partake of the many delicious cocktails and snacks--the most memorable of which were a violet liqueur and Grey Goose martini (a lovely lavendar color) and pork belly tater tots with a chili dipping sauce.

The event menu (below) was six courses of variations on sweet ingredients, with a savory course to start, paired with cocktails from various guest bartenders.

-Creamy Polenta with Mascarpone, Sauteed Morels, Veal Demi-Glace and Thyme
-Green Tea Ice Cream and Maple Syrup Cookie Sandwich, Shaved Almonds, Steelhead Trout Roe paired with a Smoked Palomino from Death and Co.
-Compressed Tuscan Cantaloupe and Galia Melon Wrapped in Smoked Apple Leather, Apple Cake Topped with Melon Linguine, Smoked Honey and Fennel Fronds, paired with a Melon and Smoked Honey Bellini from The Whisk and Ladle
-Sage Panna Cotta in a Yoghurt Soup with a Soft Raspberry Sauce and Crisp Sage, paired with a Botanica from the venue
-Foie Gras with a Port Wine Gelee, Fresh Cape Gooseberries, Compressed Gooseberries, Serrano Peppers, Baby Lettuce with a Vanilla Viniagrette, paired with a Duck Blind from Dram
-Pretzel Ice Cream Tartufo with Fine and Raw Chocolate Shell, Pretzel Praline, Caramel, Espresso Tapioca, Raw Cacao and Sea Salt, with a Ferrettini from Botanica
-Sliced Manchego with Brioche, Mulled Sauterne, Rehydrated Strawberries, Sauterne Jelly, Fresh Strawberries with Manchego Brulee, and Tarragon, paired with a Strawberry Negroni

My sweet tooth has been disappearing rapidly as I age, so I was a bit skeptical; and sure enough, by the end, I was tired of sugar. However, the meal as a whole wasn't nearly as sweet as the menu would have you believe; there were plenty of savory elements, and I suspect the volume of fruity cocktails is what sent most people's sweet tooths over the edge. Nevertheless, it was a great way to spend a sunny, warm Saturday, and I really liked the bar. I'm going to have to go back there.